Paul Johnson author of Modern Times and A History of the American People Norman Podhoretz has written a fascinating and impressively honest book about his friendships, estrangements, reconciliations, and continuing froideurs with political opponents among the New York intelligentsia. There is a positively Proustian quality about the nuances and subtleties of some of his dealings with fellow-scribes and gurus. All the usual suspects are here, in this invaluable addition to intellectual history, and they are seen in dress and undress, in benevolent mood and spitting rage.

Cynthia Ozick author of The Puttermesser Papers Behold, an utterly honest memoir -- confessional, contemplative, even wistful: yet despite the lucid serenity of its prose, passionately propelled. For all of us of Podhoretz's generation (and the next) who were obliged to stand outside the New York literary stewpot at the height of its roll, here is a hot ticket to the history of an explosive contest of ideas. Podhoretz's psychological -- and ironical -- report of his evolution from one end of the cultural spectrum to the other is much more than a political autobiography and far more tender: there is a generosity in its regret, and the clear Wordsworthian note of "raptures now forever flown."

William J. Bennett author of The Book of Virtues and The Death of Outrage Norman Podhoretz is one of this country's most consequential intellectuals. He is also one of its most enigmatic. For what to admire most in Podhoretz? His love for ideas? His rigorous intelligence? His political courage? His sparkling, combative pen? This splendid book renders the question even more puzzling. Ex-Friends is a compelling personal memoir and a fascinating political and social history.

Henry A. Kissinger Anyone interested in the evolution of the views of American intellectuals in the last half century will find Norman Podhoretz's account of his relations with key literary figures over that period indispensable. And in the process the reader will learn much about the fundamental issues that continue to challenge our country and the cause of freedom.

William Kristol editor and publisher, The Weekly Standard First he made it; then he broke ranks; now he looks back, with wit and verve and honesty -- and, yes, with affection. A remarkable account of the lost world of the New York intellectuals, of the 1960s, of the politics of ideas in modern America -- but more than all of these, an extraordinary reflection on the meaning of friendship. Norman Podhoretz has written a memoir that you can't put down and you won't forget.

Mario Vargas Llosa author of The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto This excellent book offers a lucid and fascinating portrait of the ideological wars on the American literary and intellectual scene.

Robert Bork author of Slouching Towards Gomorrah For the past thirty years an unsuspected fault line has been producing a massive lurch of the tectonic plates of our culture and politics. Norman Podhoretz's broken friendships with eminent men and women are among the resulting eruptions. Fortunately for us, Podhoretz's intellectual honesty and native pugnacity landed him on the right plate and produced these endlessly fascinating and brilliant reminiscenes of intellectual combat.

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Bold. Brilliant. Fascinating. Norman Podhoretz's Ex-Friends were the men and women whose opinions and sensibilities dominated American culture for half a century. Podhoretz's progressive estrangement from these taste-setters of American intellectual life illuminates our times.